cat. We sleep in hats and we sleep precious
little for the dogs and pigs and insects all help to keep us awake and
I cannot get used to a hammock. The native beds are made of matting
such as they put over tea chests, or bull's hide stretched. Last night
I slept in a hut with a woman and her three daughters all over fifteen
and they sat up and watched me prepare for bed with great interest. I
would not have missed this trip for any other I know. I wanted to
rough it and we've roughed it and we will have another week of it too.
We have some remarkable photographs and the article ought to be most
interesting. Bogran proved to be a very handsome and remarkable man
and we had a very interesting talk with him. From Tegucigalpa we will
probably go directly to Venezuela across the Isthmus of Panama and not
visit another Republic. We have all travelled too much to care to
duplicate, and that is what we would be doing by remaining longer in
Central America. A month of it will be enough of it and we will not
get away from Amapala before the first of February. We are all well
and happy and dirty and sing and laugh and tell stories and listen to
Griscom's anecdotes of the aristocracy as we pick our way along. So
goodbye and God bless you all.

DICK.

TEGUCIGALPA, CENTRAL AMERICA.

February 1st, 1895.

4th, 1895.

DEAR FAMILY--

Here we are at last, the trip from Santa Barbara where I last wrote you
was made in six days. It was not so interesting as the first part
because it was very high up and the tropical scenery gave way to
immensely tall pines and other trees that might have been in
California, or the Rockies. The Corderillas which is the name of the
mountains we crossed are a continuation, by the way, of the Rockies,
and the Andes but are not more than 4,000 feet high. We had two very
hot days of it in the plains of Comgaqua where there was once a city of
60,000 founded by Cortez but where there are not now more than 6,000.
The heat was awful. We peeled all over our faces and hands and dodged
and ducked our heads as though some one were biting at us. My saddle
and clothes were so hot that I could not place my hand on them. At one
village we heard that a bull fight was to be given at the next fifteen
miles away, so we rode on there and arrived in time to take part. They
had enclosed the plaza with a barricade of logs seven feet high, bound
together with vines. They roped a big bull and lassoed him